First half, 182 days, 300 job applications, and here we are.

I'm so pleased with myself for all the things I've learned.

Heyyy

How are you?

The first half of the year is, well, in the past now. But, here is what isn't, me.

I started this year gloomy, and by Jan 4th, I had cried deep, gut-wrenching tears because someone kind of sort of closure with me against my will.

I sat there wondering why can't this whole conversation couldn't have been had on the phone or in text, you know. I didn't know those tears would be small compared to the tears I would cry in March, April, May, and June.

January

I got a job at Amaka Studios to be a part of their fractional team in January. It was a beautiful offer. That's how, after the offer and training, I was ghosted. I even had to email them to be added to the WhatsApp group in April. I planned a lot around this job, but it fell short.

February

It was fun. I remember having lots of fun in February and wishing the rest of the year would go like this. I had stressful clients, but money flowed, so I was alright.

March

My birthday month, and perhaps where it started falling apart. Had two terrible clients that I ended contracts with, and somehow my JSS dropped to 80% and jobs slowed on Upwork. Just $50 here and there. My main laptop broke down, and the money to fix it was equivalent to buying a new one. That's how I started moving around with a locomotive laptop that's almost serving as a desktop now, because when you remove the charger, it turns off. I fell into debt in March, too. I began school in March, too. I went to Jos and suffered through the process of it all. I started learning automations but couldn't get past Monday.com and Airtable. The rest, like Go high-level level required me to pay a sum amount to be able to use them and practice, and thus I dropped out of that class.

April

For the love of me, I can't remember what happened in April. It just flew. Okay, I got added to the Amaka studio group and got a gig to write for a wedding brand. They paid in May, but currently there's no pay for June. I don't know what's happening lol.

May

I am grateful for the family in Jos with whom I stayed and wrote my exams in May, and somehow exams didn't finish in the first week of June.

Second Quarter

At least the good part, or so I think. I spent the second quarter achieving academic work. I studied and wrote exams. Now we are done with the first stage.

I learned Cloud data analytics, and I am so obsessed with data.

It started with my fear of statistics in psychology, and statistics in psychology was my first paper to write in the examinations. I studied so hard for it due to the fear of failing it. This now led me to the knowledge that I actually do like this statistics.

I loved the chartings and the calculations, and it was sweet.

So in the second half, I got an unpaid internship at Cognetiks Consulting in Tech sales. So they shared the resources we needed for it, and in those resources, I found free courses on becoming a cloud data professional.

I've always viewed anything dealing with data and research as hard work.

I decided to try after I completed my tech sales program resources.

I have studied so much. At odd hours, early mornings, if you ask me what I look forward to each morning, it is waking up and seeing what new dataset I can clean. 😂

In June, I restructured my business but couldn't launch anywhere because I was so stressed about the exam delays. I ended up spending three weeks in Jos, only to write the exams on Tuesday this week. This officially marked my done done done with first stage. 😂😂

Phew, so the second quarter was spent on academic validation. Formal and informal. I passed my exams for my capstone project yesterday at 12:05 am.

I'm so pleased with myself for all the things I've learned.

SQL, BigQuery, Looker, Dataproc, Data cleaning and transformation and building dashboards.

I'm sexy like that yoooii. See if I could lick my brain, I would. 😂😂😂 it’s hot and I underestimate myself each time and wow me too.

(Please don't unfollow me, I am vain like this on many, many days. If I don't gas myself up, who will?)

Things I liked in this second quarter

1. I won a chess match I was playing with some guru for three days. It added joy to my day.

2. I met a guy, he's handsome and smells nice and talks like a baby. He started speaking with me in three days and decided to go on a date on the third day. He's not my boyfriend yet oh, I don't even know if we are doing the talking stage, but he was sweet on the date. He bought me an endless scoop of Snickers ice cream, peppered goat meat, and palm wine, and took me to this very beautiful water spot he liked. It was romantic, and they played this slow music, and we stood up and swayed to it together in each other’s arms. It was surreal, my people. It is a spot where whites frequent in Jos. Very secluded, I loved it. Core memory fr fr. He's a data guy too, we spoke a lot about data, school and life. He likes that I am always studying something new and has volunteered to support my content creator journey once I’m properly settled in Jos.

3. Oh my skin started to care again a little bit with some aggressive loving. I was almost crying when I saw my facial skin in May.

4. My two friends got a job in June, and it made me so happy. It feels like God is in my corner, and soon it will be me too. Had four extra interviews in June, nothing yet. But for the first time, I am not panicking that I am not good enough.

5. I can pray now, ehnnnn. Oh, thank God for Mimi. Mimi, my anchor. Hei God. I am telling God that for FO and Mimi, he should prepare his bestest sons for them. They won't know how they saved me in the second quarter, but I know.

6. I can't remember much again. I am excited like a giddy child ready to share with you screenshots from the project I was doing yesterday that I passed with 95.9% Are you ready?!!!

Now let’s share the food I cooked in June

Some were in video format

Oh lord. It seems like it was a full life in the second quarter despite the rejections, malaria, and discomfort. I have many more images of data work on my phone now than I do of myself.

Final thoughts on this newsletter

1. You may plan everything to the teeth, and it may still fail.

2. Worship is a good relationship, lol. Pray about everything, please. I prayed about this course I was embarking on and felt peace to go ahead with it, unlike other paths I take.

3. No matter the frustrations you feel, find food and eat first.

4. Have friends to do life with. Support systems and safe spaces that bring us back together again when we fall apart. We will surely fall apart, but be brought together again by those who love us.

5. Oh, I forgot to tell you that my date talked tooooo much 😂😂 but it was nice to not be the one doing the talking at all. I listened.

6. Love love being at home.

7. Once I am rich, I will organize like 10 kpa to take my friends out and give everyone a cute box of goodies for being there for me this year.

Love,

Winifred.

Thank you for reading ♡

Didn't know how to end this letter, but yo can't believe I've done 300 job applications so far. Let’s keep going, the goal is 1000. Bye bye ❤️